Venture capitalist and Abundance bro Seth London’s dark money scheme employed by powerful advisers Lis Smith is leading the way, but he’s not alone in backing moderate candidates.
Note: I will update this post in the next hour so please hit refresh when you get to the bottom and there will be more to read.
Luke Goldstein and Katya Schwenk did yeoman’s work in the episode featured in Jacobin and The Lever.
Major Democrats, Bench and Multiple Campaigns Combine Like Poison in the Milkshake
We’ll do the ol’ picture = 1000 words first thing:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) May 4, 2026
Here’s how Goldstein and Schwenk describe the system and the large number of venture capitalists behind it:
…a new venture backed by dark money of unparalleled scale and sophistication. The network effect plays itself out as improving Democrats’ electoral chances ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. But the real ambitions of the project go much further.
Born from the ashes of the party’s defeat in 2024, this new operation took inspiration from the neoliberal revolution of the free market of the Democrats after the bitter defeats of the 1980s and 1990s and infused it with the enthusiasm of the deregulation of the abundance movement. Funded by Silicon Valley billionaires with skin in the game, the network is using the country’s increasingly reckless financial laws to appoint a new generation of leaders on board by bringing the party back to the “center”.
The machine operates like two big-name parties, the Majority Democrats and the Bench, both of which are tied to a single Democratic adviser turned secret. Under this umbrella, a network of influence disperses millions of high-level puppet political action committees (PACs), non-profit organizations, affiliates, and LLCs, while sharing the same major donors, political advisors, and often the same policy proposals.
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New filings reviewed by The Lever show that Majority Democrats and the Bench have raised $8 million so far this year, most of it from tycoons like hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel and Nvidia board member Tench Coxe, as CBS News reported this month. Other major backers of the network include financier Bill Helman, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and crypto CEO Michael Novogratz.Those contributions build on seed funding from people like LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who has spent millions supporting Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris while urging her to continue antitrust and Big Tech.
…Majority Democrats and the Bench, and their various offshoots, are the brainchild of Seth London, a venture capitalist and advisor to major Democratic donors.
In the weeks following the Democrats’ poor performance in the 2024 election, which gave the GOP the trifecta of power under President Donald Trump, London. he issued a plana lot media fansto rebuild the team.
As skanky and ambitious as the London project is, it’s far from alone.
It’s Not Just One Abundance Bro Scheming and Funding
Lest we think that one bro and his web of dark money vehicles is a total scam on the Democratic side, let’s check out this September 2025 piece by Adam Johnson for the context of the big picture:
There have been several centrist efforts that have emerged from the swamps of DC this year, but for the purposes of this article we will focus on the top three that launched in 2025: the so-called Abundance Movement, Majority Democrats PAC, and the Searchlight Institute.
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Unlike the other two parties on this list, the Abundance party is not a party, but a deliberately vague, so-called post-ideological worldview, which its supporters claim can unite everyone from the socialists to the right. However, in practice, the movement is a book of neoliberalism. The main promoters of this “movement” include organizations funded by Silicon Valley and Wall Street such as the Niskanen Center, Arnold Ventures, Open Philanthropy, Emergent Ventures, things that are increasing within the network of the Koch Brothers, the American Enterprise Institute, and the collapse of other organizations supported by billions and passing. Henry Burke of the Revolving Door Institute recently published a detailed report that places each blade on a lush carpet of astroturf.
Since “Abundance” is empty as a theory, it fits the London project of the Majority Democrats presented with a tabula rasa slate state and requires something more than “we want to rename the Democratic Leadership Council”:
“These Young Democrats Are Sick of Their Party’s Status,” reads the obligatory New York Times piece to introduce the puff, framing the astroturf effort as a vibrant youth movement.
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(“Majority Democrats have yet to issue policy directives,” the Times noted, as if it were an afterthought.) However, the group is said to be taking the advice of “Seth London, an adviser to major Democratic donors,” a history somewhat incomplete in that it leaves out that Seth London is a multimillionaire venture capitalist.
The third group Johnson co-founded, the Searchlight Institute, is most notably founded by former John Fetterman Chief of Staff Adam Jentleson and had the gall to claim credit for Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City Mayoral race last year.
But back to Seth London’s Majority Democrats.
All-Star Lineup/Rogue Gallery
Wikipedia’s entry on Majority Democrats should send shivers down the spine of any careful observer of populist politics, corporate elites, and smooth-talking Democratic elected officials. Here’s how it opens:
Majority Democrats is a joint political action committee (PAC) and super PAC launched in July 2025 by elected representatives from the Democratic Party. The group is led by Rohan Patel, a former Tesla executive and Obama administration official. The party mainly consists of moderate Democrats, and its first chairman is Jake Auchincloss.
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Majority Democrats was founded in July 2025 by a group of Democratic Alliance politicians after the election of Donald Trump. Its stated mission is to focus on “reshaping and growing the Democratic Party so it can compete everywhere and improve the lives of the American people.” The group consists primarily of moderate Democrats in federal, state, and local office, including Ruben Gallego, Elissa Slotkin, Abigail Spanberger, Angie Craig, Brendan Boyle, Gabe Vasquez, George T. Whitesides, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Maggie Goodlander, Aftab Pureval, Ritchie Tarrico, and James. About 30 politicians joined the effort when it was launched.In September 2025, the Boston Globe reported that Massachusetts congressman Jake Auchincloss would become the party’s first chairman. Auchincloss called the group’s vision “patriotism, mass production”. The group is being advised by several Democratic Alliance communications officials, including Lis Smith and Matt Corridoni.
I could go into a lot of disgusting ways from here looking at the resumes of the bunch of luminaries involved, but let’s start with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and his shocking side piece.
Sludge said
Researching this piece I came across another caper involving Majority Democrats favorite James Talarico.
Donald Shaw makes Sludge muddy, fertile, and depressing, calling his subject “a close-knit network of Democratic donors, non-profits, consultants, and PACs” in Seth London’s Majority Democrats:
A Delaware nonprofit formed seven months ago has already poured nearly $3 million into a little-known political committee that sits at the center of growing Democratic “dark money” activity, and basic details about its leadership and structure are unlikely to be revealed before the 2026 midterms.
Contours Inc., recognized by the IRS as a 501c(4) nonprofit organization in October 2025, lists only one officer and filed a small IRS postcard that reveals nothing about its finances or operations.
The new party has been busy withdrawing money from political parties affiliated with the Democratic Alliance. Contours sent at least $2.9 million to Government That Works PAC, a mixed political action committee registered last August that has been funneling dark money into Democratic races this cycle. Active Government has raised $7.6 million in total—mostly from non-profit organizations that do not publicly disclose their donors—and has spent $5.5 million on several competitive campaigns, with nearly $2 million remaining heading into the election season.
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Contours listed only one name in its IRS filing: chief executive Sarah Stremlau, a philanthropy consultant who previously led fundraising operations at Arabella Advisors. For years, the company—recently renamed Sunflower Services—managed a sprawling network of left-leaning nonprofits, including the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through Democratic parties while shielding its donors from public scrutiny. The Thirteenth and Thirty Fund itself contributed $4 million to Active Government in January 2026, making Contours and Sixteen its two largest donors.
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The PAC released that money to different races. Its largest donation of $3.75 million went to Lone Star Rising PAC, the primary PAC supporting Texas Democrat James Talarico in his primary race for the US Senate, while discrediting his main rival, Rep. Jasmine Crockett. That amount makes Government That Works the top donor to Lone Star Rising, accounting for nearly four out of every ten dollars the super PAC has raised. Lone Star Rising also received funding from billionaires Reid Hoffman ($1.5 million) and Stephen Mandel ($500,000), and $500,000 from The Bench, a PAC to which Madel gave $2 million.
The bench is the connective tissue that connects Contours to Seth London’s Majority Democrats piece.
As the democrats look set to make big gains in the upcoming elections in November, it is important to keep a close eye on this type of obscenity.
